Where Hope is Currency
by Kali Cephirot
Summary: It's only when it starts snowing that Miharu realizes that it's already December.............. MiharuxYoite, ONE SHOT, FINISHED.


**Where Hope is Currency.**

It's only when it starts snowing that Miharu realizes that it's already December. Despite the fact that he has never quite cared to notice when seasons change other than to wear a jacket and a scarf or shorts, Miharu is surprised to realize that November's gone.

Time now means something, because every second as it goes means that Yoite has less time left. He glances at Yoite, but he has his eyes closed and he's breathing slowly, his lips partly open. He looks a little flushed, and when Miharu touches his cheek with the back of his fingers, Yoite feels a little bit warm.

Despite the fact that he was careful, Yoite startles awake, his hand half rising as if to point to someone, but when he looks at him Yoite calms down; he sighs and his eyes close again as he rests his weight against the bench.

Miharu doesn't ask if he feels okay, knowing that he won't like either answer and that it will also make Yoite sad. So instead he sits by his side, leaning his head against Yoite's shoulder, looking at the snowflakes falling down.

"My grandmother once told me that snowflakes where the tears that the goddess of the mountain shed for those who had died," Miharu says with that strange feeling that sometimes blossoms within him when he's with Yoite. He wants Yoite to know everything about him, and he wants to know everything about Yoite, but he doesn't dare ask. It's not his place, he thinks. Not yet. "She always liked this season. She even decorates our store with Christmas motives. She likes the lights and the music and the cookies. Especially the cookies."

"I've never celebrated Christmas before."

Yoite doesn't sound sad as he says this, doesn't sound much like anything. Miharu realizes that Yoite just said it to contribute with the conversation, but it still makes him angry, so unbearably angry and upset to think about all the things Yoite hasn't had.

So he stands up and, before Yoite can ever ask what's going on, he yells.

"I'll be right back!"

*

It takes Miharu more than ten minutes to come back. Yoite spends those minutes looking at the snow falling down. He wonders if there really is a goddess crying, and then he wonders if she'd cry for him, if these snowflakes are for him.

Before he can decide anything at all Miharu's back, bright eyed and smiling, a little bit flushed but happy.

"I got them!"

And he presents a can decorated with a snowed landscape, where reindeer pull a sleigh. Miharu grins and Yoite remembers when they first met, and somehow he would have never expected that expression on Miharu's face. Miharu sits down, pulling at the lid and then wrinkling the paper cover, showing his price.

"I wasn't sure if there'd be any, but there was a man at a store that had them. He even gave them to me at half the price."

And with the way Miharu smiles, it means that he used his charm to get them cheaper. Even so Yoite smiles and he picks a cookie shaped like a snowman, the icing sticking a little to his gloves. He still takes a huge bite, and he's almost able to taste the cinnamon, the icing that melts on his tongue.

He picks another one filled with jelly, and one made of gingerbread. He's eating his fourth cookie when Miharu speaks.

"Do you want to spend this Christmas with my grandmother and me?" Miharu smiles. "We don't really do much, but grandmother always has at least a present, and she buys cake and makes hot cocoa to drink."

Yoite wonders if he'll be able to stay alive until then, or if Miharu will have achieved the Shirabanshou by then. He wonders if he'll still exist in this world, or if there won't be even a thought for him. But then, Yoite knows that if he was to say something like that, Miharu would be sad.

And he doesn't want to make Miharu more sad than he has to be, so instead he nods, just once, thinking that it's a nice thought even if it never comes true, and he's rewarded with one of Miharu's smiles.


End file.
